Firstly, different charging devices can be used with different portable electronic devices. The capabilities of the different charging/portable devices are therefore not always suitably/optimally matched.
Secondly, wireless connectivity/functionality is becoming increasingly common. Users of portable devices are often unfamiliar, or cannot easily use, their wireless functionality. These issues give rise to particular problems.
Consider the situation of a car having Bluetooth™ connectivity to allow wireless connection between the car audio system (including speaker/microphone system) and a mobile phone.
The mobile telephone is connectable to the car audio system through a local Bluetooth™ wireless connection, between the mobile phone and the car audio system. Once the local connection between the phone and the car audio system has been made, a user (e.g. the driver) can use the mobile calling functionality of the mobile phone without necessarily having to use his hands to actuate one or more phone buttons. This is often called “hands-free” operation (although it is still possible, and sometimes required, to use your hands to activate one or more functions (or sub-functions) of the phone). Thus, upon connection, the functionality provided by the phone is usable through the car audio system, i.e. both the phone and the car audio system make use of the other's functionality.
Similarly, the music contained in a portable music player (e.g. stored on the hard drive of an MP3 player), once the music player is connected to a car audio system, can be heard through the car audio system. The functionality provided by the music player is usable through the car audio system, i.e. both the music player and the car audio system make use of the other's functionality.
Often, there is more than one device with which wireless connection (pairing) can be conducted. For example, in the above situation, one user may have more than one MP3 player and/or more than one phone, each of these electronic devices having wireless connectivity. Also, two or more users may drive the car, each of these users having their own wirelessly connectable electronic device. In such situations, pairing between the car audio system and the one or more of the multiple electronically connectable wireless devices may be confusing to a user (and/or not straightforward).
Often, such car audio systems are arranged to automatically search for all possible portable electronic devices with which pairing can be conducted, for example, upon car ignition (or depression of a particular button, or activation of such functionality). If the searching identifies that more than one electronic device can be used for pairing (whether it has been paired previously with the car audio system or whether this is “a first time pairing” between the audio system and the portable device), it is not necessarily straightforward for the system to know with which portable device pairing should be conducted. This is further elaborated below.
Take the example of a father getting into his car, with a wirelessly connectable (Bluetooth™) PDA switched on to allow pairing. His children are in the vicinity of the car with their respective MP3 players, also with their wireless connectivity (Bluetooth™) on and able to pair. In this example, the PDA and the respective MP3 players have been previously paired with the car audio/video system. The children may currently be listening to the music on their respective MP3 player via associated/paired Bluetooth earpieces.
Upon switching on the ignition, it is not readily apparent with which of the wirelessly connectable devices the car audio/video system should pair.
The same issues arise in an office/hotel/airport environment, or other such environments, in which multiple portable electronic devices (including laptops) can periodically wirelessly connect to an access point (e.g. by WLAN). In such cases, once pairing between the laptop and the access point has been made, the laptop makes use of the wireless connection to access the computer network to which the access point grants access.
Even though the aforementioned examples mention the mutual use of the functionality of two paired devices/systems/apparatus, the basic function of the pairing is to allow wireless communication between two paired devices/systems/apparatus.